Touching Lives - October 2013

Wendy’s gift can bring hope for children

We are delighted that long-standing supporter Wendy Parker has remembered Action with a gift in her will. Wendy, who lived in Leeds, died in April 2013, generously leaving us over £660,000 – one of the largest legacies ever left to the charity.

Wendy’s association with Action was long and varied and included an opportunity for her to see our work up close when her brother Colin, an eminent dental surgeon, was awarded a research grant in 1994. The aim of Colin’s project was to produce a mouth-operated switch for severely physically disabled people to operate environmental controllers and computers.

When Colin died prematurely in 1997, Wendy and his friend Diane Saxon established an Action fund in his memory. The Colin Bramley Parker Memorial Fund supported a project investigating the effects of pre-surgical orthodontics on feeding and speech outcomes in children with cleft lip and/or palate, which would have been of great interest to Colin.

Wendy’s legacy gift will help fund a number of research projects that could lead to life-changing treatments for babies and children. Gifts in wills are vital to our ability to fund the very best medical research and more gifts like these would enable us to do so much more – we are currently only able to fund around half the children’s research recommended to us by our panel of expert scientists.

Wendy’s gift is exceptional but you don’t have to be wealthy to leave a legacy. We are extremely grateful for all gifts, whatever their size, and each gift we receive is recorded in our Book of Remembrance.

Other recent legacies have included shares in the estates of Joan Horrocks of Kirkudbright, Patricia Worton of Upminster, Irene Harling of Llandudno, June Moore of Aylesbury, and gifts from Louise Grover of Diss, Lady Martin Fitzalan Howard of York, and Jean McBoyle of Huntley, Aberdeenshire.

We are extremely grateful for their generosity in remembering Action. If you are making or updating your will, please consider including a gift to Action Medical Research. For more information or a confidential chat, call Jane Tarrant on 01403 327414 or email her at jtarrant@action.org.uk. You can also read more about leaving a legacy in our leaflet here.